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"ewsnead"

«We've crossed a watershed. Any attempted
retribution by Scientology against institutional critics
(The cult still maintains significant capacity to make
an example of individual critics) backfires to the
extent that it entails extra-legal tactics and in
consequence, prompts further investigation with more
prolonged and ugly public exposure of its criminal
disposition. Scientology no longer reliably enforces
silence and secrecy as a broad strategy of concealment
with regard to its intentions and activities and as a
weapon against would-be adversaries. The costs of
criminal containment have come to outweigh any benefits.
The vagaries of the real world attained sufficient
critical mass to finally overcame the purportedly
impregnable Hubbard doctrine of "Always attack!! Never
defend!" Scientology currently finds itself pinned down
in a tiny corner of the room into which it spent so many
years diligently painting itself. Its founder refused to
consider the possibility of setbacks to his agenda and
failed to develop more flexible approaches to adversity.
His successor lacked even this iota of imagination. So
goes the dwindling spiral of Scientology.»

«The Scientology cult has been gradually painting itself into a corner since
the billowing of Hubbard's paranoia and advent of heavy ethics during the
1960's. Since then, it's never been a contestable issue whether the cult's
growth rate would initially stall and soon thereafter contract. Scientology is a
contradiction. By disavowing the past, relegating it to a scrapheap, it manages
no learning curve and cannot forge a coherent future. This could not be any
plainer; anyone following the cult's activities recognizes that management
policies are not founded upon the sort of considerations that would allow it any
future. It exists strictly in the now. And it magically believes that
this now can continue indefinitely. The only reason it has managed to stretch this
illusion so far is through bullying, intimidation and the fear capital generated
through a well-earned reputation for ruthlessness.»

«With the loss of the private self, either through commitment to Scientology
or more indirectly by virtue of the vicissitudes of constant public attention,
comes the collapse of intimacy, the inability to feel emotions "privately" in a
grounded and spontaneous fashion, to have a surefooted sense of what is real and
thereby true. This loss in turn undermines the feeling of "ontological" security
that accompanies any sense of making clear distinctions between "what is mine"
and "what is not-mine" or "who I am" and
"who I am not."»

«Hatred distorts, and in so doing occludes reality. When Cruise reduces
criticism to intolerance, he inadvertently admits his failure of faith in the
real. This urge to take flight from reality is probably the greatest source of
intolerance and evil in human affairs. The oftentimes jarring discomfort
afforded by criticism remains our only protection against such evil.»

«This episode represented for me but one straw in a succession
that eventually broke the horse's back.
I distinctly recall that
it suggested the extent to which Scientology was prepared to
tell anybody anything in order to extract whatever it was that
Scientology wanted to extract from any particular someone for
whatever reason. Scientology had gone on the record as assuring
this unfortunate individual that in the next lifetime he could
"live in a body of his own choosing." Such transparencies had
nothing to do with the entire doctrinal motif of reincarnation
with which I had earlier become acquainted while casually
encountering it in Eastern philosophy. Scientology cynically
twisted a venerable tradition into a manipulative ploy.»

«SCIENTOLOGY in fact discourages a members efforts on his or
her own behalf towards greater self-awareness. For an excess of
awareness might prompt one to leave. Nor has it any interest of
the welfare of its individual membership. Rather, only
organizational goals matter in stark contrast to its public
dissemination. SCIENTOLOGY's method of attracting newcomers
entails a classic "bait and switch" scenario. It promises
prospective members freedom and expansion. Once inside they
discover constriction and slavery. One experiences a harshly
conditioning atmosphere comprised of coercion, extortion and
exploitation. And this treatment is "for your own good." Those
offering positive testimonial to the virtues of its confessional
counseling methods ("auditing") and administrative procedures do
so under command and severe duress. SCIENTOLOGY maintains a
rigorous system of administrative controls ("ethics"). In
addition to peer pressures to conform, an omnipresent "ethics"
scrutinizes the behavior of its membership very closely and
ruthlessly deals with instances of complaining, nonconformity or
poor production ("statistics").»